Warmth Within Punishment
by GeishaKitten
Summary: On what happens when Prince Diamond's ghost hovers near Usagi's bedside, wishing for the warmth and life which permeates it's surface. READ AND REVIEW


This is a tribute to my ten plus years of Usagi/Demando fandom...though I use the dub name of Diamond here because I think it kind of flows better that way...I haven't written SM fanfics in ages, so forgive any immaturity and awkwardness here...

(c)Naoko Takeuchi

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If it were still possible for Diamond to reach out and touch Usagi as she lay sleeping on her bed, he knew with all that was left of his condemned soul that she would be shockingly and deliciously warm.

His pallid ghost of a body could barely remember what it was to feel warmth, as he had been dead for what felt like an immeasurable length of time, and even during the course of his mortal years of life he had grown accustomed, both in mind and body, to the inhospitable, merciless cold of the barren planet Nemesis.

As he stared upon her breathing form however, he swore that he could still recall the maddening sensations of slowly-rushing heat which he had first experienced the moment that he first got a glimpse of those guiltless blue eyes; eyes which he had never been able to get out of his head from the second he had first glanced at them. They communicated purity, compassion, forgiveness, and life; everything which he'd lacked in his own heart, at least until she had caused him to question the contents of his own hate-filled soul.

There had also been the dizzying rush of raw heat that had overtaken him during those many private, hidden moments when he'd attempted to drink away her image from his mind, only to fail miserably time and time again.

Finally, there had been that overwhelming feeling which he had first experienced when he held her in his arms for the first time. It was a feeling of melting away and dying; of something shattering into a thousand pieces within him and leaving him utterly defenseless. She hadn't wanted or loved him then, and had accepted his embrace with obvious revulsion, but it had hardly mattered to him at the time, as long as he had her near him.

Had it ever really mattered? Diamond asked himself mentally as his trademark bitter, sardonic smile flitted across his phantom face, giving it a sudden life which it had never seemed to possess during the brief, harsh time that he had indeed been alive, or at least what the world knew as alive anyway.

He pressed his lips gently over Usagi's forehead and watched, fascinated, as her eyelids opened wide and began to blink frantically with a dazed sort of confusion before she closed them and dozed off once again, returning once more to whatever pure and blissful dream she had been previously in the middle of.

It was a dream that he knew he could never possibly be a part of, but he didn't mind, because merely being able to stand over her was more of a heaven than he'd ever thought possible for one with sins such as his.

He nearly sighed despite his lack of breath as he thought back to the act of passion which had ended his life, and remembered how Usagi had dared to hold him as the blood drained from his body. She cried for him, he who had tried to make her life into a living hell for his own selfish pleasure, but who had ended up dying to save her life. She shed her jewel-like tears for him, and those tears were what had cleansed him and saved him from the fires of hell.

However, he had not been able to move on to heaven, but had remained attached to the earthly plane where _she _was. It was both heaven and hell for him at the same time, as he was able to be wherever she was, but could never call out to her as he was forced to watch her take comfort in the arms of another man every single day.

"M…Mamoru," she whispered, her pretty pink mouth opening and closing in a way that he knew would have driven him near mad with desire were he still alive. _Mamoru_, he thought, trying hard to hold back the contempt which he used to feel at the mere thought of Usagi's masked lover. After all, how could he hate what she obviously held so dear? What good could it possibly do him now to hate?

"Usagi," he whispered, bending down towards her so that his mouth was completely opposite hers, as though he could take some of her slow, tremulous breaths as his own and live once more. Unable to take the feeling, he pressed his spectral lips onto hers which were still full and pink with life and blood.

"Mamoru," she whispered, moaning into his mouth, or the mere, slight shadow of it that she was able to feel as she dreamed.

"No," he whispered back, caressing her lips with his fingers this time. "Do you forgive me for this?" He asked, impulsively resting his head on her throat and the blazing heat that he wished he could feel there.

Surprise caused her eyes to blink open and shut awkwardly and her breath to come faster, but while Usagi was the perfect paragon of loyalty in her waking hours, even she was not beyond accepting love from a stranger if it came in the safe and seemingly harmless form of a dream that would evaporate and fade with the light of the morning.

"I forgive you. Just please, don't leave me alone, not tonight. I don't want to be alone," she replied in a sweetly sleepy sort of mumble as she kissed him back within the pitch black darkness.

"You will never, ever be alone," he answered as joy filled the emptiness and coldness that was death, though he had never before felt so alive.

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END OF STORY

REVIEW PLEASE!


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